1. Field
The present disclosure relates to computer systems for communicating over a network with a medical device.
2. Description of the Related Art
The sharing of patient data between medical institutions and health care providers presents a variety of challenges. These challenges may include privacy, expense, accessibility, etc.
In 1996, President Clinton signed the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Among other things, this law (i) ensures the continuity of healthcare coverage for individuals changing jobs; (ii) includes a provision that impacts the management of health information; (iii) seeks to simplify the administration of health insurance; and (iv) aims to combat waste, fraud and abuse in health insurance and healthcare.
The Department of Health and Human Services has issued various regulations to implement these new requirements. These regulations impact all healthcare organizations that electronically create, store and/or transmit healthcare data. Among other things, HIPAA requires the secure storage and transmission of electronic healthcare data.
Setting up Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) or running point-to-point T1 lines can provide the necessary secure transmission of electronic healthcare data. However, VPNs and T1 lines can be cost prohibitive in many situations.
Alternatively, the so-called secure shell (SSH) technology and rsync protocol can be used to provide a suite of network connectivity tools which enable secure transmission of electronic healthcare data by creating a minimal subset of a many-to-one virtual network running over the public Internet.
In addition to the foregoing, medical institutions (e.g., hospitals) typically implement firewalls to limit outside access to their internal computer networks. Among other things, hospital firewalls will typically block outside attempts to access any medical data on their internal medical devices. One example of such a device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,040,318, the disclosure of which is hereby incorporated by reference. Outside access to such devices, even if they included an embedded server as described, is typically blocked by medical institutions.
Unfortunately, in many situations, it can be important for a healthcare provider to have access to the medical data on internal medical devices outside the healthcare institution. For example, it may be desirable to pass collected medical data from the hospital to a physician for analysis. In circumstances such as these, the aforementioned security systems for storing and transmitting electronic healthcare data can impede the electronic transfer of the data.